View from Krasnaia Hill. Fir Trees. Miniar Station

Description

From 1909 to 1912, Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) made several trips to the territory around the Ural Mountains, where he photographed railroad installations, factories, urban settings, and natural scenes. In the summer of 1910 Prokudin-Gorskii traveled along the Samara-Zlatoust Railway (built in 1885–92; now the Ufa-Chelyabinsk line). Framed by spruce trees, this view from Krasnaia (Red) Hill shows the Sim River valley and the Miniar factory and settlement. Located in present-day Chelyabinsk Oblast, Miniar arose in 1771 adjacent to an iron-working factory at the confluence of the Sim and Miniar rivers. Some 240 kilometers long, the Sim originates in the hills of western Chelyabinsk Oblast and flows southwest to the Belaia River, a tributary of the Kama River. Visible down the hill are a cemetery and chapel enclosed by a fence with white posts. In the background, hills of the Greben Mountain range are covered with conifer trees. Prokudin-Gorskii used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. Some of his photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.

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Physical Description

Glass negative (presented as a digital color composite)

Notes

Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographic work survives primarily in two forms: 1,901 black-and-white triple-frame glass plate negatives, made with color separation filters, which Prokudin-Gorskii used to make color prints and lantern slides; and 12 albums of sepia-tone prints, made from the glass negatives, which Prokudin-Gorskii compiled as a record of his travels and studies. The Library of Congress purchased the glass plate negatives and the albums from the Prokudin-Gorskii family in 1948. In 2004, the Library of Congress had digital color composites made from all the surviving glass negatives using a software algorithm to automatically align the color components. As with most historical photographs, title and subject identifications are corrected and enhanced through new research. Current information on the collection is at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/.